Book Review: Mad Love by Suzanne Selfors

Amazon description:

When you're the daughter of the bestselling Queen of Romance, life should be pretty good. But 16-year-old Alice Amorous has been living a lie ever since her mother was secretly hospitalized for mental illness. After putting on a brave front for months, time is running out. The next book is overdue, and the Queen can't write it. Alice needs a story for her mother-and she needs one fast.

That's when she meets Errol, a strange boy who claims to be Cupid, who insists that Alice write about the greatest love story in history: his tragic relationship with Psyche. As Alice begins to hear Errol's voice in her head and see things she can't explain, she must face the truth-that she's either inherited her mother's madness, or Errol is for real.

Review

Alice Amarous the only daughter of a famous romance novel author is left to deal with her mother’s affairs when she is taken into a mental illness hospital because of her bipolar disorder, which leads to bouts of depression. The problem is no one apart from a few close friends know where her mother is, including the loyal fans of her books so Alice is forced to spin a web of lies in an attempt to keep the secret hidden including signing her mum’s books and even planning to write her next book that the publishes are demanding. If this isn’t enough stress to deal with, she meets a guy called Errol who thinks he’s Cupid and wants her to write the story of his life....

Alice is a very strong character and responsible with a fighting instinct because I’m sure many young girls facing the tough situations she was going through wouldn’t have been able to cope on their own as she did. Whilst being mature and independent might make her sound like a boring character, she also has a fun loving nature and a sense of humour that shines through. She seemed a realistic teenage girl with problems that she has to deal with and a real loyalty to her family so I was able to sympathise with her easily. I loved her relationship with  her crush Tony, the hot and adorable guy that she watches skate past her window every morning and their slowly budding romance uplifted the story by making it lighter hearted. There isn't much focus on this and I wish there had been more scenes including Alice and Tony featuring him as a more prominent character but Alice has a lot going on in her life so I understand why there wasn't.

There are several well written secondary characters in the story such as her friendly neighbours Mrs Bbot, Reverend Ruttles and Archibald who are always looking out for Alice’s well being and trying to help her in any way possible. Each of them bought something different to the story. Errol (Cupid) plays a big part in the book and his story is sad although I found his character very weird and creepy when I think he was meant to be portrayed as a bit of a mysterious sexy bad boy. The granddaughter of her neighbour Mrs Bobot called Realm was a particularly interesting character because she had a lot of self esteem issues and felt that she wasn't accepted or loved by her parents. She wasn't a very likable character but I'm glad she was a part of the story all the same.

Considering the bright pink cover adorned in hearts, you would have to be forgiven for thinking Mad Love is just a fluffy and cute romance. Whilst it does have elements of this, it surprised me that it has a much darker and deeper side to it too because it deals with mental illness and more specifically bipolar disorder. I thought that the author handled this really well because it was dealt with sensitively and formed a major part of the plot without weighing it down too much because it's still a fun book despite this. I know someone with bipolar disorder so it was interesting to find out more about the condition and I think others fascinated by mental illness and depression will like this aspect of the book.

This is the first Suzanne Selfor's book I've read and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised about her writing and humour! The book grew on me the more I read of it and although I didn't know that much about the myth of Cupid and Physche before, I enjoyed learning about it and liked the different take on Cupid from the chubby cherub baby with the bow and arrow we all picture him as.

Verdict: Mad Love takes the classic mythological God Cupid and spins a unique and cute story around it that deals sensitively with issues such as bipolar disorder whilst remaining humorous and fun at the same time.  I really enjoyed it and it a great book to add to your summer reading list!

Rating: 3.5

To  find out more about Suzanne Selfors, visit her website here!

Suzanne Selfors

Thank you to Bloomsbury for providing me with a review copy of Mad Love in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: Flawless by Lara Chapman

Thank you to Bloomsbury for providing me with a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Goodreads description

Sarah Burke is just about perfect. She's got killer blue eyes, gorgeous blond hair, and impeccable grades. There's just one tiny-all right, enormous-flaw: her nose. But even that's not so bad. Sarah's got the best best friend and big goals for print journalism fame.

On the first day of senior year, Rock Conway walks into her journalism class and, well, rocks her world. Problem is, her best friend, Kristen, falls for him too. And when Rock and Kristen stand together, it's like Barbie and Ken come to life. So when Kristen begs Sarah to help her nab Rock, Sarah does the only thing a best friend can do-she agrees. For someone so smart, what was she thinking?

This hip retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac is filled with hilariously misguided matchmaking, sweet romance, and a gentle reminder that we should all embrace our flaws.
 
My review
 
Sarah Burke is a new high school senior with long blond hair, blue eyes and gets top grades. While that description might make her seem flawless, Sarah sees herself as anything but because of her enormous nose that seems to attract the wrong kind of attention wherever she goes. She has learnt to accept it as part of herself and can't quite bring herself to have a nose job like her mum did to fix the same affliction. When a new boy arrives at her school, it changes everything....

Without a doubt, what I loved most about this book was the characters because I often find that contemporaries set in high school (out of the few I've read) often feature cliched characters such as the popular mean girl or the dumb blond. In Flawless, each of the main characters Sarah, Kristen and Rock were really well developed with believable flaws  so I was able to relate to each one of them and I couldn't help but grow to love them. The protagonist Sarah is witty, smart and exceptionally well organised but has many insecurities about herself because of her abnormally large nose that often holds her back. I was able to understand her feelings about this perfectly because every teenage girl feels insecure sometimes and this has been a big topic in the media over the past few years. I loved the close friendship that she shared with her best friend Kristen who she agrees to help get the attention of Rock despite having strong feelings about him herself. This showed what a loyal friend Sarah was because she would do anything for Kristen's happiness and puts their friendship before guys.

Although blind to Sarah's feelings for Rock, it was clear that Kristen was a fantastic friend too who was always there for Sarah. I really liked how she would stick up for Sarah when people made fun of her nose and was protective of her. She was the party girl of the two with model like looks and a fabulous fashion sense but just as lovable in her own way!

Rock was absolutely gorgeous and I'm not surprised that both girls in the book were after him! He was smart, witty, handsome and best of all he loved literature and reading. Some guys in YA books can be quite shallow and there characters are under developed but this wasn't the case with Rock. I loved his banter and some of the things he said- totally cute! Also the dates that he thought of were so romantic. Although I do have to point out that he wasn't an unrealistic perfect character and did have character flaws.

I think that the issues of being learning to be happy and comfortable about yourself and your body, loyalty and boyfriend problems were handled really well because they were a subtle theme throughout the book that left me with a message that acted as food for thought but it was never pushed onto me or became preachy. I like this because it makes the reader realise it and work it out for themselves. A nice little addition to this was the famous quotes to do with how beauty isn't perfection and other topics like that at the beginning of each chapter. I'm going to copy some of them into my new quote book because I like them so much. Here's an example of one of my favourite quotes in the book:

'The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw.' Havecock Ellis

I hadn't heard of the story of Cyrano de Bergerac before I read this retelling and I looked it up after finishing the book and I think it's been adapted really well for the twenty-first century.

Lara Chapman's writing was fabulous and there are many hilarious one liners in the book that seem very natural and not forced. This is her debut and she writes like she's already an experienced bestselling author so I can't wait to see what she writes next!

Verdict/Quick read:  Flawless lives up to its name with well developed characters, witty one liners and of course a gorgeous guy- the perfect combination for a high school set story! Every contemporary fan should have this debut at the top of their reading list and even if you're not usually a contemporary fan (like me!) then I still recommend it.

Rating: 4.5 stars